


Neilah

by Chestnut_filly



Series: Actual Fic [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Arnor, Dúnedain - Freeform, Fic, Gen, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Themes, Jews? in your canon? it's more likely than you think, Númenor, Second Age, Third Age, through the ages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:24:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly
Summary: On Dôl en Idhrinn it is written, and on Arad Dannestad it is sealed: Who will rest and who will wander? Who will be safe and who will be torn? Who will be calm and who will be tormented? Who will be made humble and who will be raised up?Númenor, the Dúnedain, and the Days of Awe through the ages.





	1. Dôl en Idhrinn

**Author's Note:**

> Three characters think through the Aseret Yemei Teshuva. 
> 
> Because this year, idk, I'm sometimes thinking through my holidays through this Tolkien lens. Both the HHD and Tolkien are ways for me to cope with how the world is now, and here we are. Linguistic notes at the end, yay!

“It seems strange to me to celebrate your new year in the autumn,” Elrond says, “Almost as strange as having two new years at all.” 

He sits on the railing of Elros’ bedchamber balcony, dangling his feet into the empty air, swaying alarmingly when the wind off the gray sea picks up. Elros is unconcerned. Unless Tindómiel gets it into her head to try to imitate her uncle, Elrond may mistreat his architecture as he pleases. Of the two of them, he had always been the surefooted one, something Mama had said came from his grandfather, who lived in the high mountains like a sheep or an eagle. 

“The court over-analyzers will tell you it’s because the rains come in this season,” Elros says, rising from his desk, cracking his back. “That’s true enough. I can feel it these days, you know? The rains come and the island is made anew.” 

He walks out onto his balcony, shoving gently at Elrond’s shoulder to bid him move over and leave him space to lean his forearms on the balustrade. The sea in its playfulness sends fingers of breeze to catch at his braids, streaked now with its own gray to match the waves, to play over the planes of his face become yearly more craggy until one day Elros is sure he will be a mate for the northern shore-cliffs. Elrond shoves back, as always. 

Elros feigns hurt. “My brother, you must mind my bones! Unlike the island, the rains do not refresh me.”

Elrond snorts. “Please, you don’t look a day over three hundred; clearly the rains are doing something for you. What’s more, you’re telling fibs. Last time I visited the new year was during the first month, not the seventh, and your people were content enough with a harvest festival to greet the rains.” 

“Oh, we still do celebrate the harvest,” Elros says mildly. “And we _have_ kept the old new year for administrative purposes. As you say, it does make more sense.” 

Out to sea, the whitecaps blow spume into the air, shuttering quickly in and out of the sunlight. It is bright on the balcony, but Elros can taste the storm hovering on the horizon. Tindómiel can always sense them well before him, can put his weather-divining to shame by virtue of having been born here, having lived her life tasting the sharpness of sea-rain and the dusty sweetness of the dry summers, but the decades have taught his tongue well enough. And his joints, for what it’s worth. 

“Again, that seems excessive.” Elros levels a look at Elrond. How much he looks like Vardamir did when he was younger, he thinks. One of Elrond’s years-long visits had come when Vardamir was going through a phase of passionate interest in Sindarin history, and Elros remembers distantly watching Celebrían gesture as she listed names and dates, bracketed by her husband and nephew, mirror images of each other. 

Elrond looks back, steadily, and Elros loves him for the curiosity mingling with the humor in his eyes. 

“It is to remind us,” Elros tells him, and he smiles as he says it. 

“To remind you of what?” Elrond asks, and Elros flexes his fingers on the granite of the balcony’s railing, feeling the roughness of the stone scrape against his callouses and the old battle-scars on his fingers. 

“The court historians will tell you that this new year falls always near the day we first were brought to Númenor,” he says, feeling the smile stretch at his skin as it never did when he was young, when joy did not engrave itself on his face like the rivers on the high plains. 

Elrond looks at him, still curious, unsatisfied, but so willing to wait, just as he always has, climbing trees or leading men, waiting for the tides of the sea and the tides of politics to beat themselves out. “Speak on,” he says. 

Elros cannot but smile wider. “It helps us remember our history. And it helps us remember who we want to be, and how we have diverged from that path.”

The curiosity still flares in Elrond’s eyes. “But why the autumn?” 

“I would tell you that it is as much about death as it is about life,” Elros tells him, “And so the season.” 

Elrond opens his mouth as if to ask again, eyes still curious, and Elros loves him, loves him. He reaches out his hands, slightly bent now like the branches of the trees that line the streets of Armenelos, freckled by its sun. 

“Listen,” he says. “That is Tindómiel at the door with her apples. She’ll tell you it’s in the fall so that we can eat our apples with honey and not disturb the bees so, and she’d be right too.” 

Elrond reaches out and takes his hands, letting himself be pulled off the balcony. “Any excuse for your daughter’s honey,” he says, laughing. 

“Go help her with the baskets; you know she always tries to carry too many and sends the apples flying all over the room,” Elros tells him. “I will be in right behind you.” 

Elrond vanishes through the curtains to Elros’ chambers and Elros can hear laughter and the telltale sound of apples thudding wetly on stone floors. Out to sea the clouds have stopped scudding, massing into long banks from which veils of rain meander softly until they meet the answering clouds of spray. He breathes in the breeze once more, and the clean newness of the scent sets his bones to aching as though they might flower like an apple tree come the spring. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. Easy enough to translate to Sindarin: Dôl en Idhrinn, the head of the calendar year.


	2. Anno

The seagulls this year are as plentiful as ever, Míriel thinks, despite it all. 

She rips another bit of bread off the loaf she holds and throws it overhand at the largest of the gulls, a sharp, angry gesture unbefitting of a queen, or even a consort. It falls short, caught by the wind, and an eddy of the waves pulls it under before the gull can gobble it up. 

 _I missed the mark_ , Míriel thinks, and chokes back the ugly laughter that surges up her throat before it can draw attention to her. 

After all, this could be a perfectly normal seagull-feeding party for the consort and her ladies, and it is best to keep up appearances. Calion almost certainly does not care if he does know, but the sorcerer he keeps cleaved to his side both knows and cares, Míriel is sure. Likely he would be here beside her to take her arm and exchange barbs and keep her from the water and her contemplation. 

She thinks of him like another screeching gull, flapping around Calion’s head and pecking at him until fed. A silly image, and one that cannot possibly compass the crawling horror she feels around him, but the trappings of a scavenger suit him. 

These are no thoughts for a holy day. Míriel closes her eyes, breathes in the salt air. Around her, her Faithful ladies cast their own bread, their own cares and troubles into the water. Calion’s guards on the piers keep them from singing the ancient songs, from dedicating themselves once more to guardianship and the straight path, but even Calion’s new witch-master has never yet found a way into Míriel’s thoughts. 

The gulls screech, and Míriel tugs off another corner of bread. 

 _Out of distress I call, and will no one answer me?_ For long years she has prayed for help, sent messages to the colonies, asked her spies for advice. Relief from any quarter has never been a certainty, but she has made it so a fleet of ships waits out of sight of the harbor, ships waiting to ferry others to safety. She casts the crust into the ocean. _I let go my need for guidance_. 

Another crash of waves, another tuft of bread. _Justice is with me, how then can I fear man?_ Míriel is afraid always, now. She fears the sorcerer’s knowledge, Calion’s cruelty, her own fate. And yet what good has it done her? Calion is even now locked in conference with his sorcerer to challenge the gods by force of arms, and all her politicking is for naught. And yet the fruit of Nimloth will grow again in other lands, in better times. _I let go my fear._

Míriel pulls off wisp after wisp of bread and throws them to the gulls. She thinks of the defilement of the Temple, and remembers the texts she sent on the first ships of refugees before the sorcerer burned the rest. _I let go my guilt_. 

She thinks of Númenor’s last forests razed for Calion’s new ships, and remembers the Faithful who had fled with their plows and seeds under guise of improving agriculture in the colonies. Some mistakes will not be made again. _I let go my hope._

Over the waves and the gulls, Míriel hears the pounding of running feet and the jingle of a messenger’s bells. She does not turn, shredding the last of her bread in her hands and letting the crumbs trickle into the foam. 

“Your Majesty,” a young runner girl pants, and Míriel finally turns around to face her. 

“Here I am.” 

“Your Majesty,” the messenger gasps again, eyes wide, trembling from more than the exertion of the dash from the palace to the shore. “Ar-Mairon and Ar-Pharazôn have decided- they leave today to wage war on Valinor.” 

Míriel feels the shock ripple out through her ladies, feels the guards on the piers train their eyes on her and likely hidden bowmen their arrows. 

She herself feels no shock, no fear, no guilt, no hope. Only a fierce, hot certainty in her chest, rising by the moment and making her throat clench, her hands curl into fists. She raises her eyes, looks at each guard and then up and up until she sees the blackened remains of the Temple on the hill, staring them down as if by doing so she could cow the sorcerer himself. 

“Surely then,” she says, in the ringing tones of the queen she might have been, feeling her voice carry into the streets of Armenelos, born aloft by the sea breeze and unhampered by the gulls, the gulls who have fallen silent, leaving even the bread still bobbing in the waves uneaten. “Surely, we will see the downfall of our enemies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tashlich means to cast off, to cast away. One gives one's "sins" (but forget that kind of Johnny-come-lately Christian normativity), one's burdens, one's failed shots to the water so one can walk into the new year light and ready to take up the work of tikkun olam again. 
> 
> Anno, then, for the Sindarin "to give."
> 
> Much of Míriel's inner monologue and dialogue is adapted from Tehillim 118, commonly recited during Yom Kippur and Tashlich.


	3. Ilyë Vanda

The elders of Arnor dictated in Sídhil’s grandmother’s day that all wear white to the reverences of Arad Dannestad, white like the shrouds of the dead and white like the sails of the ships that had saved the Faithful. Each year, even as the white robes worn by the priests and worshippers had grown more and more elaborate, had tilted towards rich damasks of white or snowy embroidery on silk the color of old ivory, Sídhil had taken their words to heart, removed her fine woolens, unpinned her sapphire brooch from her collar, and appeared in the great court in her simple linen shift.  

The great court was pressed close with people, with the whisper of white fabric and the heat of the whole of Fornost Erain raising their voices in song, swaying with the chanting and the pulse of beaten breasts. Above it all, the north wind whispered.

The elders of Arnor said that Arad Dannestad was once a celebration of the new lands of the Edain, a mark of their transformation into Dúnedain, a farewell and a lament to their old lands lost beneath the sea and a festival in honor of the raising up of Númenor. Solemn, yes, and full of awe, but a day free of fear. 

Not even Sídhil’s grandmother was old enough to remember those days. For Sídhil’s grandmother, and Sídhil’s mother, and Sídhil herself, Arad Dannestad was a day of lamentation, of remembrance of things lost and never to be regained. 

For her part, Sídhil remembered being young and feeling the strength of her people strongest during the days of awe, when they stood together to remember, to mock together a semblance of what they had been before the ruin of Beleriand, before the destruction of the great Temple on Númenor, and managed something surpassing glory. Sídhil remembers how holiness felt, pressed close to her people as they sang and rededicated themselves to the healing of Arda Marred. 

She remembered running down to the river’s daughter with her hands full of feast food, apples left over from the new year, sweet breads and long-baked fish, aglow with stories and snippets of song to share. The river daughter would laugh at her, tease gently about devotion to Powers who had last been felt in the Drowning, but Sídhil would laugh and tease back. Arad Dannestad was not about the Powers, she would say, or even about the One. It was about pride and survival and righteousness, about the best qualities of Men, their survival. It was their honor and their dedication being celebrated and renewed. The first night served as an assurance that never again would oaths come to dictate their fate into madness and destruction. 

Sídhil would sing and sing and feel her people sing around her just as they had done so long ago in Númenor, and even longer ago in Beleriand, an unbroken chain of which she was a mere link, singing strength. 

It is too dangerous now to run across the downs to visit Goldberry. The winds blow cold from the north and those who try to cross the tombs of the dead are often found as if frozen in the height of summer. 

Sídhil shivers in her linen. Her thoughts should be on herself, she knows, on how she has missed the mark this past year, how she has vowed unwisely or weakened the community, but her whole head is taken up with _never again_. 

The elders of Arnor say _never again_ in Adunâic, though nobody speaks it anymore except in liturgy, sometimes. When they say it, they mean that Arnor and Gondor will stand strong forever, that the Edain will never again be scattered and weakened. 

Sídhil’s grandmother says _never again_ in Sindarin, the tongue of the Faithful who escaped the Drowning of Númenor itself. When she says it, Sídhil can see the great crash of the wave mirrored in her eyes. Her grandmother means that never again will her people fall so far or do so much damage to the world. 

Sídhil’s generation says _never again_ in Westron, in the common tongue. When they say it, it is with a sword in the hand and iron on the tongue; a violent, senseless beating back of a horror they cannot see and the false monsters they create to have something to swing at. _Never again_ was the chant of the rebels in Cardolan, where Sídhil’s own father fell defending the unity of the kingdom. 

Sídhil sways to the chanting. _We have trespassed, we have committed treachery, we have robbed_ , she thinks. _We have spoken falsely_. She has known her whole life that _never again_ has a second half that remains unspoken no matter the mouth it drops from. 

When an elder, or Sídhil’s grandmother, or Sídhil’s friends say _never again_ , the echo is always _this will happen again_. This will happen again; we will be washed away by the sea. This will happen again; our people will fall. This will happen again, and we will lose and lose until there is nothing left to rebuild, and no one will ever gather to break their oaths and sing again. 

 _We have oppressed, we have been stiff-necked_ , continues the chant, and Sídhil thinks that never again will she see the sun glint butter-yellow off Goldberry’s hair. Never again will she run across the downs to share the bounty of the harvest new year, or build her harvest hut by the banks of Goldberry’s river-mother. Never again, she thinks, as the north wind howls chill over the chant of the Dúnedain, will she feel safe and holy in the company of her people. This will all happen again. 

The service progresses. Sídhil stands and sits numbly, sings the right words in the right languages and feels alone but for the hissing of the north wind. Her mother and grandmother and all the generations of the Edain stretch out behind her, but Sídhil feels nothing but emptiness before her. Never again will a link be added to the chain of her people. 

The moment comes for the prostration, and Sídhil kneels and presses her face to the cold stone of the floor. All around her, her people fall to their knees and then their faces as the wind picks up to a scything howl. A great rustle and bow and cascade of whiteness all around her, like a wave cresting and crashing on the shore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ilyë Vanda - Kol Nidre, all vows. Direct English translation is more like "every oath." Translation here is particularly difficult because a) this isn’t actually Hebrew; it’s Aramaic, b) “Nidre” is an incredibly specific and nuanced word which is virtually impossible to translate, c) because it’s Aramaic and not Hebrew I thought, “Hmm, this should probably be Quenya and not Sindarin, even though that makes no actual sense and will make my life more difficult.”
> 
> I thought the blending of Kol Nidre and Tolkien is particularly interesting, because _literally the entire Silmarillion_ is about how unwise oaths to God fuck things up. Well, we have a holiday for that! Leave it to the Edain to be sensible about such things even in their spirituality.
> 
> Also, this is definitely not how Kol Nidre services go; this is some Frankenstein mishmash of Kol Nidre and the Yom Kippur morning service where the full obeisance actually happens. I know it's sad here, but honestly the prostration is the moment where I personally feel what I think holiness is. It's a big deal to bow down, and especially to "fall on one's face," if you're a Jew. We have an entire holiday about _not_ doing that! So to be pressed together with your people, engaging in an act of revolutionary repentance and resolve, that is something special. I hope the poor Lady of the the Blue Brooch knows somehow that her people continue and feel holiness and history and future again.


End file.
